Rejected Again 9/16/22

Depression with Richard Bleil

The purpose of these posts, as stated previously, is to help people going through similar feelings to know that they’re not alone.  But to be fair, there’s also something cathartic in writing them.  For the past few days, I’ve been struggling with depression as a result of rejection. 

It’s fair for her to reject me.  She owes me nothing, and apparently the chance that I thought I had was exaggerated in my own mind.  This is not her fault, but the reality is that it stings anyway.  The way she rejected me was by “ghosting” me, basically she just stopped communicating with me.  My friends, bless their hearts, keep trying to make me feel better, but I’m afraid that, so far, it doesn’t help.  That’s because what I’m feeling is more related to my own emotional issues as opposed to anything that she has done. 

I’m fairly familiar with my triggers.  It’s one of the benefits of years of therapy.  The primary things that I learned in therapy are about myself, as opposed how to “be happy” or deal with my issues, but knowing myself helps me to know my triggers, and that does help me to deal with them.  At the very least, it helps me to recognize when they are the root cause of emotional distress, as I am feeling now, and to at least put it in some sort of perspective.  There are a couple of triggers in this case, being ignored (as when she started ghosting me) and “dismissed”, as she did in her rejection.  These are not her problems.  She’s honestly innocent in all of this.  Unfortunately, in her decision on me +and how to deal with it, both completely legitimate and fair, she just happened to step on my trip wires.  That’s my fault, not hers. 

But regardless of fault, it still leaves me with the necessity of dealing with my feelings.  My friend noticed that I’ve seemed to be struggling and has been trying to convince me to do something.  She’s right.  The best way to get past feelings like this is to find something, anything, that I can do.  It might be going out to take photographs, a “mini trip” to a new place, an adventure (I still haven’t been ziplining yet this year) or sometimes just running chores can help.  A hug and physical contact would go far, but, as I’ve said, I was rejected. 

Rejection isn’t easy.  I’m sure I’ve written on this before, but there’s a certain vulnerability in exposing your own desires and interests in another.  You’ve laid bare your heart, and you’re asking for acceptance.  To be rejected is to be told that your feelings are unrequited, and that your affection is not returned.  You start such an encounter from a place of loneliness, and that place just ends up with new depths of darkness.  And you’re left dealing with this loneliness and rejection, well, on your own.

And now I enter into a realm that has been highly traversed, and yet feels like uncharted territory every single time.  How do I move past this?  My friend was right, I need to get out and do something.  My yard needs tremendous work, so maybe yardwork will get me outside, moving, and if I can make any kind of headway at all, maybe even a sense of accomplishment. 

Now that I’ve written this, there is, of course, an additional complication.  I don’t think that many of my social media friends read these posts (but there are some who read them regularly, and I truly appreciate them doing so), there is the distinct possibility that she will read this.  If she does, I do hope that she takes to heart that what I am going through is not her fault.  It’s mine, and mine alone.  I was serious when I wrote that she did nothing wrong, and her decisions and action are fair and legitimate.  This is not about her; it’s about me and my own shortcomings.

So, life goes on.  I need to find a way out of this maze of depression, and without the benefit of light to guide my way.  No matter how often it happens, it feels the same.  I know I’ll get through this.  It’s just a matter of time, and I simply have to be patient and keep trying.  For anybody going through the same thing, it’s temporary.  It feels much bigger to me than usual, but it’s probably only because I’m still very close to it.  But I’ll get through this.